Arts & Culture
A 17-day festival spanning six performance genres, a museum collection running back to an 1858 founding, and the largest full-time performing arts organization anywhere in South Carolina.
Spoleto Festival USA
Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Gian Carlo Menotti founded Spoleto Festival USA in 1977 as the American counterpart to his Festival dei Due Mondi in Spoleto, Italy, choosing Charleston for its historic architecture and gardens. The 17-day late-spring festival stages more than 150 performances of opera, dance, theater, classical music, and jazz, and has presented more than 200 international and U.S. premieres since it began — a scale and genre range not matched by a typical regional arts festival.
Gibbes Museum of Art
The Gibbes Museum traces to the Carolina Art Association, founded in 1858; its Beaux-Arts building on Meeting Street has operated as a museum since 1905. The museum's permanent collection holds more than 10,000 works of fine art, principally American works with a Charleston or Southern connection, including an early collection of miniature portraits.
Charleston Symphony
Founded in 1936, the Charleston Symphony is South Carolina's largest full-time performing arts organization, with a regular season of orchestral programming distinct from the touring and festival-based classical music available in most mid-size metros.